DOMINO RESEARCH
Business stories,
told the way they actually happened.
Stories about the people, companies, and decisions that moved markets — plus daily research on what's happening now.
THIS WEEK
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Twelve Days in October: The Embargo That Broke the World's Economic Order
On October 17, 1973, ten Arab oil ministers met in Kuwait City and decided to do what no one had done before: weaponize oil against the West. Within five months, the price of a barrel had quadrupled, four hundred American gas stations a day had run out of fuel, the Dow had lost 45 percent, and Henry Kissinger was secretly planning to invade Saudi Arabia. The 1973 embargo lasted only twelve days for some countries and five months for others — but it ended Bretton Woods cheap energy, created the petrodollar, and rearranged the relationship between Washington and Riyadh in ways the United States is still negotiating with today.
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The Fed Chairman Who Caused a Recession on Purpose — and Why Every Fed Chair Since Has Studied His Choice
On October 6, 1979, Paul Volcker called an emergency Saturday meeting of the Federal Reserve Board and announced that the Fed was abandoning the way it had set interest rates for two decades. Within three years, the prime rate hit 21.5 percent, unemployment reached 10.8 percent, and Volcker was burned in effigy on the steps of the Capitol. Inflation, which had run at over 13 percent the year he took office, was back under 4 percent. He had broken what nobody before him had been able to break — and the playbook he wrote on that Saturday is the document the current Fed reaches for whenever inflation gets out of control.
The Government Broke Up Standard Oil. Rockefeller Got Richer.
On May 15, 1911, the Supreme Court ruled that the most powerful corporation in American history had to be split into 34 pieces. John D. Rockefeller learned the news on a Pennsylvania golf course. By the end of the day, his net worth had increased. The pieces — Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Amoco, BP — would, between them, become more valuable than the trust ever was. The story of how a female reporter, a Republican president, and a unanimous court demolished a monopoly is also the story of why every antitrust case since has had to ask: are we breaking this thing up, or making it bigger?
The CEO Olympus Fired for Asking Where the Money Went
When Michael Woodford became Olympus's first non-Japanese CEO in October 2011, he had spent 30 years at the company. Six weeks later he was asking about a $687 million payment to a shell company in the Cayman Islands. Two weeks after that, the board fired him 14-0. He flew straight to the Financial Times.
Silver Thursday: The Day Two Texans Almost Broke Wall Street
By the start of 1980, three brothers from Dallas had quietly accumulated more than 200 million ounces of silver and pushed the price up tenfold. When the unwind came, it took 36 hours, brought the New York Federal Reserve into emergency talks, and triggered one of the most secretive bailouts in American financial history.
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Salesforce Just Told You Something About Every Software Stock You Own
Salesforce Just Proved Enterprise AI Isn't Vaporware — Here's What Falls Next
ARM jumped 11% in a day. Here's what the market is really betting on.
Oil just crashed 7%. Here's who wins and who loses.
Ferrari built a $640,000 electric car. The internet said it looks like a Nissan Leaf.
